On Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Kevin Ferris wrote a column describing Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) tiptoeing around the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Specter is one of the senators working with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to salvage the bill, and Ferris wrote that Specter — who earlier in the year announced his intention to oppose the bill — needs EFCA to pass, as he “now needs labor support because of the expected primary challenge from U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.”

In response to the column, Specter wrote a Letter to the Editor claiming that his stance on EFCA has been consistent:

I have no hesitancy in stating my own views. I have voted to have the Senate consider the modification of labor law to reform the way unions are certified and to provide procedures for negotiating first contracts. Earlier this year, I made a floor statement opposing giving up the secret ballot and suggesting the last-best-offer procedure on arbitration. My views on this subject have been consistent, and suggestions to the contrary by those intending to run against me are incorrect.

As Dan Hirschhorn at PA2010.com pointed out, “only Specter knows what his true views are, and while they may be consistent, his actions on the legislation have been anything but.”

Indeed, Specter was a co-sponsor of the bill and voted for cloture when the Senate considered it in 2007. However, earlier this year (before switching parties), Specter took to the Senate floor to announce that he would vote against cloture. Even after the party switch, Specter released a statement emphasizing that “my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.”

But last month, Specter addressed a crowd of union activists and told them “I believe you’ll be satisfied with my vote on this issue.” So the only thing Specter has really been consistent on is a consistent willingness to wobble back and forth on the issue.

Cross-posted on ThinkProgress.

Our guest blogger is Seth Michaels, Online Communications Coordinator at the AFL-CIO.

Today, the New York Times reported that a half-dozen senators have decided to drop the majority sign-up provision of the Employee Free Choice Act in favor of a requirement for “shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections”:

Several moderate Democrats, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, have voiced opposition to card check, convinced that elections were a fairer way for workers to unionize. They were swayed partly by business’s vigorous campaign, arguing that card check would remove confidentiality from unionization drives and enable union organizers to bully workers into signing union cards.

You have to read almost to the end of the Times piece before learning that lawmakers continue to discuss various details of the bill — it’s not a done deal. There are details to be worked out in the legislative process, and meaningful labor law reform must include the three principles underlying the Employee Free Choice Act:

– Workers must have a free choice and a fair path to choose to form a union, free from intimidation.

– Real penalties must exist for employers who break the law.

– Workers who choose a union must be able to get a fair first contract

– Companies must not be able to engage in endless delays and stalling tactics to deny workers a collective bargaining agreement.

With President Obama’s backing — reiterated on Monday — and the support of the majority in Congress, this is the year to pass the most significant labor law reform since the 1930s. And let’s not forget that 73 percent of the public supports the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions.

The reason for such support is understandable. Corporate abuses are all too common, and companies can act with impunity against employees who are trying to form unions. Workers who try to exercise their basic freedom to form a union are faced with mandatory meetings, threats of wage or benefit cuts, threats of firings or plant closings and even illegal firings, because of weak law and negligible penalties. That matters to the lives of workers across the country. And even when workers do get through the company-dominated process, more than half wait more than a year for a first contract, and nearly one-third don’t have a contract two years later.

The Employee Free Choice Act has earned the support of small businesses, faith groups, civil rights groups, leading economists and a wide variety of community organizations, who all agree that a strong, progressive country with a healthy economy depends on the ability of workers to bargain for a fair share. Three-quarters of Americans support legislation to make it easier for workers to bargain collectively.

We can and will pass meaningful labor law reform this year. America’s workers can’t wait.

Last week, the Chamber of Commerce announced that it will “vigorously oppose” a new consumer protection agency proposed as part of the Obama administration’s regulatory reform package. But that’s evidently not the only way in which the Chamber is out to influence the debate over the changes facing Wall Street.

Yesterday, the Chamber laid out its opposition to a change — backed by the administration and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) — that would allow shareholders to vote on their company’s executive compensation practices, so called “say on pay”:

Opponents of an effort to give shareholders greater rights are centering their attacks on organized labor, arguing that unions are pushing such proposals to bolster their ranks and boost their declining pension funds.

“Big labor unions are trying to achieve at the board table what they cannot achieve at the negotiating table, under the guise of shareholder protection,” said David Hirchsmann, president of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.

So the Chamber opposes the Employee Free Choice Act because it wants to “save the secret ballot,” while also opposing “say on pay,” which would guarantee that shareholders can hold a non-binding vote on their company’s executive pay packages. Isn’t it convenient that the Chamber only thinks voting is important when Big Business can set the rules?

But “say on pay” is really about injecting some sanity back into corporate governance. As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “[say on pay] has already become the norm for several of our major trading partners.” In two of those countries — Great Britain and Australia — CEO pay “grew 2.4 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively, from 2002 through 2006, while pay in the United States soared 59.9 percent in the same period.”

Some companies in the U.S., including Aflac Co., voluntarily undertake such votes already. “We want people to look at us and say, ‘Here’s a company that will even let you vote!’” said Aflac CEO Daniel Amos. “It’s symbolic, but it’s an important symbol.”

And that’s just the thing: the vote is non-binding, leading some to say that it doesn’t go far enough toward reining in Wall Street excess. As Dean Baker explained:

The current rules allow management insiders to make out like bandits at the expense of shareholders and other stakeholders. This is why clowns get paid tens of millions to run their companies into the ground in the US…Obama’s proposals do not go nearly far enough in taking back power from the insiders. We should have binding shareholder votes on compensation in which unreturned proxies don’t count.

So in the end, “say on pay” is simply an attempt to get some sense of balance back into corporate governance, and to start holding executives accountable to someone other than themselves.

Yesterday, the Republican Steering Committee designated Rep. John Kline (R-MN) as the new ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee. Kline is replacing Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), who’s taking up the role of ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee.

According to the Duluth News-Tribune, “issues in front of the [Ed and Labor] committee are not those Kline ran on when he got into politics…But he said that in his four two-year terms he has gained education and labor experience.” Well, here’s some of what that experience had led him to do:

– He voted against a minimum wage increase three different times in 2007.

– He voted against lowering interest rates for student borrowers enrolled in the Federal Family Education Loan and Direct Loan programs.

– He voted against the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act.

– He introduced the Secret Ballot Protection Act, which would “prohibit a union from being recognized” through a majority sign-up process.

– He supported “some system of personal accounts” as “a central component” of Social Security reform.

The National Education Association actually gave Kline an F grade for both 2007 and 2008.

According to the St. Paul-Minneapolis Star Tribune, “in his new role, Kline will be expected to be a leading GOP combatant” against the Employee Free Choice Act. But with his Secret Ballot Protection Act, Kline revealed that he has no idea how union drives even work. He advocated taking the majority sign-up option away from workers, even though, since 2003, half a million workers have organized in this fashion, including employees at AT&T, UPS and Pacific Gas and Electric.

Kline, as he laid out in this Washington Times op-ed, is very concerned with the “coercion, intimidation and bullying” of union organizers (even though there is no evidence that this occurs in states that allow majority sign-up), but he doesn’t spare a word for the coercive and punitive tactics that employers use to prevent employees from unionizing. Instead of leveling the playing field for workers, Kline would simply prefer preserving the anti-worker status quo.

Our guest blogger is Josh Rosenthal, Special Assistant to the External Affairs Department at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

As Congressional leaders work to determine the final details of the Employee Free Choice Act, workers in Tar Heel, North Carolina continue to learn firsthand why the legislation is so important.

Yesterday, the Fayettesville Observer reported that six months after successfully voting to join a union, workers still do not have a first contract at a Smithfield Packing Co. plant. Smithfield’s stalling is par for the course, after the company spent fifteen years using harsh employer intimidation (including forcing an employee to stamp “Vote No” on dead hogs) to prevent a union from forming. A study by John-Paul Ferguson of MIT illustrates just how common this situation is:

Even after a majority votes for a union, many units fail to get a contract. Only 56 percent of units in which a majority of employees voted for a union and were certified for bargaining by the NLRB were successful in reaching a first contract. Only 38 percent of such units reached a contract within one year.

The Employee Free Choice Act would stop Smithfield’s delay tactics, by allowing either unions or employers to bring in federal mediators if contracts stall out after 90 days. Thirty days after that, an arbitrator would be brought in to work through any final hurdles. After months of lies about the majority sign-up aspect of the bill, conservatives have begun to turn their sights on binding arbitration. The Wall Street Journal calls it “federal wage setting” and fearmongers about the influence of “political, er, incentives.”

Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal’s fears are unfounded. As arbitration experts Thomas Kochan and Arnold Zack explain, “arbitrators would have to meet the standards of experience, expertise and mutual credibility and acceptability by business and labor leaders,” and employers would help choose the arbitrator.

The Wall Street Journal’s lies can’t overcome what the Smithfield workers have learned first hand. America needs labor law reform that creates a path to a first contract, along with a fair process of joining a union and tough penalties for lawbreakers.

According to a report today in Politico, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) “is trying to resurrect the Employee Free Choice Act by reaching out to a group of Democrats looking for cover on the politically treacherous bill”:

Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Jim Webb of Virginia, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Dianne Feinstein of California are participating in preliminary talks to modify the “card check” bill, according to lobbyists and aides. Aides say Harkin is holding daily, closed-door conversations with interested lawmakers, business groups and labor unions.

This is good news. Lost in much of the the EFCA debate, which mostly centered on the kerfuffle over “the secret ballot,” is the simple fact that labor reform is still necessary and has a good chance of getting through Congress. Various methods for reforming the union election process have been floated, including a proposal from Feinstein that would allow workers to mail in their ballots directly to the National Labor Relations Board. Other key provisions — including arbitration to ensure that workers who vote to form a union actually get a contract — are still being negotiated.

Plus, it’s not like the problems that EFCA is meant to address have gone anywhere. In fact, a new study out today from the Economic Policy Institute found that over the last 20 years “employer opposition [to unionization] has intensified…and the nature of campaigns has changed so that the focus is on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity”:

Although the use of management consultants, captive audience meetings, and supervisor one-on-ones has remained fairly constant, there has been an increase in more coercive and retaliatory tactics (“sticks”) such as plant closing threats and actual plant closings, discharges, harassment and other discipline, surveillance, and alteration of benefits and conditions.

The study found that “employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of the campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent,” while firing pro-union workers 34 percent of the time.

Of course, the business lobby has already committed itself to opposing any compromise on EFCA. “Let us be clear and frank on this matter; there can be no acceptable ‘compromise’ on any issue of labor law reform due to the very real threat posed by EFCA,” wrote the Coalition for a Democratic Workforce, a front group composed of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, among others.

Pressure from the business community has also led some senators, such as Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), to try to avoid the issue. Harkin, however, is threatening to bring the original bill to the floor. “We’re trying to get the necessary compromises made to get this through,” Harkin said, but if a compromise cannot be found, “it is my intent that we will put the original bill on the floor and make people vote on it.”

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Senate is working on a compromise version of the Employee Free Choice Act. The deal may involve dropping the provision allowing workers to form a union through majority sign-up, while negotiating over other parts of the bill aimed at ensuring that workers who form a union get a fair shot at receiving a contract and implementing stiffer penalties for employers who break labor law.

Evidently thinking the battle over “card check” has been won, conservatives are now turning their attention toward these other provisions. To this end, anti-EFCA spokesman George McGovern penned an op-ed today attacking what he calls the bill’s “compulsory arbitration” provision, which would bring in arbitrators if employers and a union can’t agree on a contract in 120 days:

Compulsory arbitration is bound to trigger the law of unintended consequences. Currently, labor law maintains a careful balance between the rights of businesses, unions and individual employees. While bargaining power differs depending on individual circumstances, the rights of the parties are well balanced. When a union and a business enter negotiations, current law requires that both sides bargain “in good faith.”

The law may require “good faith,” but in reality, workers receive anything but. Here are some examples of what “good faith” looks like these days:

- It took meat cutters at a Texas Wal-Mart nine years after they voted to form a union to begin negotiations with the company.

- Employees at a Rite-Aid drug warehouse in California voted more than one year ago to form a union, but Rite-Aid is trying to run out the clock, so that it can “stop the pretense of negotiating.”

- On March 31, 2007, workers at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, voted to form a union. They still have no contract.

Cornell organizing expert Kate Bronfenbrenner found that “a third of workers lack a contract a year after voting for union representation.” “There is no penalty,” she said. “You can have an employer that refuses to meet and talk and the worst penalty is another piece of paper saying, ‘Shame on you.’”

And it’s not like businesses don’t use arbitration in other matters. For instance, businesses love to put mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts with consumers, so that they can avoid class action lawsuits. In fact, companies include mandatory arbitration clauses in 75 percent of consumer agreements. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also written that “virtually any type of dispute between private individuals or entities can be addressed by arbitration.”

Any compromise on EFCA needs to have a mechanism ensuring that workers who have legally formed a union can take part in fair contract negotations. The status quo of unpenalized delay is simply insufficient.